Guests

Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Lou wants to re-partition his hard drive so he doesn't have his data sharing the same drive as his OS and programs. Leo says that with modern operating systems, it's not really necessary anymore. But it is good drive "hygiene," and he won't run the risk of wiping out his data when updating or reinstalling Windows. It's also easier to back up his data that way.

How big should the C drive be? Leo says it's a good idea to look at his hard drive for his Windows and programs folders. Add up the sum of those and he'll get a basic idea how much room the OS and programs take up. Leo says to make the the C drive is about a quarter of the total, and the data gets the rest for the D drive. Since Lou has a TB of space, that gives Windows and programs 256 GB of space to run wild.

George keeps hearing about BitCoin and how much the price keeps going up. What gives it that value? Leo says nothing but sheer belief. BitCoin is crypto currency, which are essentially digital dollars that don't exist outside of a computer. You can't really take it and spend it at the local store unless the store takes it. But even a dollar bill isn't really anything but a fiat currency that the government says it's worth. The value of a dollar, or any other currency, changes all the time. It's fluid. So BitCoin is just an extreme version of that. They are stored in a Bitcoin wallet or service, and can even be traded in for real dollars. Hackers tend to like bitcoin because it can be somewhat anonymous.

Michael wants to know how he can connect an old hard drive to his new computer to get the data off it. Leo says he can get a temporary hard drive connection kit to do it. Newertech is the company that makes them. It's called the Universal Drive Adapter Kit, and costs about $45. It may be cheaper on Amazon.

Michael also needs help because he's blind and wants to still use his computer. Leo says to try the Foundation for the Blind. They can lead him to a local foundation that can help him. Blind users can use a computer just as well as a sighted user with the right accessibility equipment. Windows also has an accessibility upgrade going from Windows 7 to Windows 10, which has even better accessibility features, and it's free.

Audience QuestionsHour 2

Linda is going on an Alaskan cruise and is looking to get a good phone that has a great camera. She also wants to get binoculars, though. Leo says binoculars will probably be on the ship. She should take that money and put it towards a good camera. The problem with a camera phone is that the zoom is digital and it still won't be that good for her sole means of capturing memories. A nice point and shoot with 10x optical zoom would be a better choice. The Panasonic Lumix LX10 is a good choice. It also shoots 4K video, and adds stills to the video. It's about $600. The Canon Powershot is another good option, and it's more affordable too.

Alan wants to get back into Ham radio and has heard about SDR, or software defined radio. Leo says that most modern radios are software defined and he can get back into it by just installing the software on his computer. Alan should check out EchoLink. He should also listen to Ham Nation on TWiT. He'll still need a license, but it's a good way to get back into it.

Danny left his laptop on while flying and when he went to open the laptop, the drive disappeared and he doesn't know what happened. Leo says it sounds like the drive had been jostled to the point that the computer couldn't read it. It could still be connected, though. It's likely that the disk catalog was damaged or corrupted. He could run disk utility, but Leo isn't all that confident that it will work for him. Drive Rescue could perhaps fix the problem. Disk Warrior is another. He could also take out the drive and connect it to a Windows machine with a universal drive connector and get the data off it. Then he can format it and reinstall everything. Just because it failed, doesn't mean the drive is bad.

Danny also has a 2009 Mac Pro, but Boot Camp won't allow him to install Windows 10 — only Windows 8.1. Leo says Danny needs to upgrade to Yosemite in order to run Windows 10 because it has the Windows 10 drivers.

David wants to know if he can listen to an audio book with his iPhone as well as his Android phone. Leo says he should, unless Apple does something different to them when buying them off iTunes. But if the audio book is from Apple's iBook Store, it's copy protected with the ePub format. He would need to strip it in order to play it on another platform. There are programs and plugins that do that, but they tend to be fly by night. TunesKit has one called iBook Copy for Mac. It has a free trial.

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Glen wants to know if he can get a desktop version of a Chromebook. Leo says yes he can. It's called a ChromeBox or ChromeBase. But it won't offer the Android store like the Chromebook does because it requires a touchscreen. LG makes the ChromeBase and Acer makes a 24" All-in-One. There's also a ChromeBit from ASUS, which is an HDMI stick that Glen could plug into his TV with a Bluetooth keyboard.

If Glen can live on the internet through a browser for everything he does, then a Chromebox or Chromebase is for him. They're becoming wildly popular with schools, too. He can even put together his own Chromebook with an old laptop and Cloud Ready.

Rob has a 9 year old grandson and he got him an iPad. He loves technology. Leo says to put Swift Playgrounds on it. It's an app that teaches kids how to program an app. It uses game play to do it and it's fun. Rob could do it with him too!

He also wants a smart watch that can play games. Leo says smart watches can't play games, really. They aren't that smart and have a tiny screen. Battery life isn't good enough to play games, either. At best, he could interact with a game on his phone or tablet. Instead, Leo suggests getting him a Nintendo Switch. It's a portable game console that will work with the TV. There are great games to play on it.

Gary got Windows 10 and didn't like it, so he downgraded to Windows 8.1. If he buys another computer, can he use the image ID of Windows 8 on it? Leo says he really won't want to do that. Ultimately, he'll have to go to Windows 10 and it's pretty much the same, anyway. It sounds to Leo like Gary didn't have his Windows 10 machine properly set up and he couldn't find anything he needed. Microsoft used to have a free utility called Easy Transfer Wizard, but they've killed it and now he would have to buy one from Laplink. EaseUS has a free one called Todo PCTrans Free. Leo says EaseUS is a good company and it will probably do the trick.

Gloria wants to get rid of her ISP and change her email. Leo says if she's going to get rid of her ISP and its email, Leo recommends going with Gmail first and setting it up to get the email off her old email account. Her ISP is DSL Extreme. Leo says that DSL Extreme is a good provider, but if she's having issues, it may not be their fault. It may be the carrier that DSL Extreme is piggy backing on, which is usually AT&T. They have to allow them to carry it, but they don't really want to share. So they make it difficult. Her other choice is to going with cable provider like Spectrum.

Steve is visually impaired and he wants to know if he can use the Amazon Echo to control his Sonos stereo system. Leo says yes! You can set it to the auxiliary input and then you can use the Echo to control it. That's the way to do it. The Apple Home Pod will also be able to do it in December. Go for the DOT though. Leo has his DOT connected to his and it works great.

This Week in Tech News

Tired of the intrusion into his privacy, Leo decided to quit Facebook last night. Leo says that when Facebook users take quizes on Facebook, the quiz maker gets access to ALL your personal information, as well as the information of your friends - without THEIR consent. And Leo says Facebook refuses to do anything about it.

Even worse, while Facebook assures members that the information won't be used in violation of Facebook's privacy policy, a whistle blower from the company said that is exactly what happened with Caimbridge Analytica. When the story came out, Facebook quickly banned the company in an attempt to get ahead of the bad news. Facebook has also given users the option to delete their personal data without having to cancel their account.

But this was the last straw for Leo, and he's out of there. But should he leave Twitter and Google as well? Google is a lot harder.

This week, Leo got the Samsung Galaxy S9 and it's not only got one of the best cameras ever, but DxOMark says the screen is practically perfect in every way. Leo also says he's pleased that the fingerprint reader was finally put in the right place. But what's strange for him is that there's not much difference between the Galaxy S9 and the Note 8. Maybe a faster processor and slightly smaller, but they're practically the same.

Leo also got a new HP Envy X2, which is the first laptop to run on an ARM processor. But even then, it's still running on Windows 10S.. That means it only runs 32 bit programs and only from the Windows app store. It has 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot. It also weighs a pound and a half and fantastic battery life. HP says 22 hours, which means about 11 hours in reality. But Leo says he's getting more like 15-16 hours. Amazing. And it has LTE, all you need to do is put in a Google Fi SIM and Bob's your uncle. But at $1000, it's not cheap. And Leo says it's really SLOW. Chrome is also really slow on it.
Leo's recommendation ... there's a lot to like, but he wouldn't recommend buying it.

Magic Leap has been a company that's been all hype and no action for years, despite all of the great demos they have on their website. Now the company says it's making a prototype that looks like welder's glasses for augmented reality. This means it would put virtual things on top of the real world, so you're not completely isolated like you would be with virtual reality. Magic Leap says it will release its system to developers sometime this year. It features glasses, a small Discman sized computer that can attach to your belt, and a controller.

Magic Leap just raised half a billion dollars more for this from Saudi Arabia. They got 502 million dollars in October, and have received more than 2.3 billion dollars in funding so far from a variety of investors.

With Ready Player One set to come out later this year, Leo says there are a ton of virtual reality exhibitions at the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival this week in Austin. Leo also saw a mockup WestWorld outside of Austin. Tickets sold out in minutes.

According to a new study, the more outrageous fake news tweets you see on Twitter, the more likely it will be retweeted, while actual news only gets retweeted about 1/4 of the time. Leo says that this is driving many to give up the social media app altogether. And those who have stayed, Leo says it works as an outrage engine to rage at the machine.